EL AAZ ^ vw * 



*y 



LV 



BB^ y 



oF CONG^ SS 






oaa syo 






I 

DEPORTATION AND COLONIZATION 

AN ATTEMPTED SOLUTION OF THE RACE PROBLEM 

By WALTER L. FLEMING 

PROFESSOR OF HISTORY IN THE LOUISIANA STATE UNIVERSITY 






D. of D. 
FEB L4 1915 



DEPORTATION AND COLONIZATION 

An Attempted Solution of the Race Problem 

Deportation and colonization of the negroes as a solution 
of the race problem of the United States is not a modern plan. 
It is as old as the feeling against slavery and the prejudice against 
the negro race. Had the slaves been of the same race as their 
masters, there would have been no suggestion of deportation and 
colonization ; the history of the unfree white classes in medieval 
Europe and in colonial America shows what the solution would 
have been. But in regard to black slaves there was another prob- 
lem besides that of status — it was that of race. Was it possible 
for two free races, unlike in many respects, to inhabit the same terri- 
tory without racial conflict ? After the emancipation of the negro 
race, this was the problem that had to be solved. 

A majority of the people of the later colonial period and the 
early nineteenth century who opposed slavery believed that de- 
portation must follow emancipation. The plan for the coloniza- 
tion of free negroes in tropical countries had its origin in New 
England. It was first publicly advocated in 1770 by the Rev. 
Samuel Hopkins of Newport, Rhode Island, who for several years 
carried on an agitation on a small scale. Considerable interest 
in the project was aroused, and numerous individuals who were 
opposed to slavery and to the presence of negroes in the American 
population regarded it as the proper solution of the difficulties 
arising from emancipation. Thomas Jefferson was, in his time, 
the leading advocate of foreign colonization. He believed that 
slavery was not a permanent institution and that the negroes 
when emancipated could not live in the same country with their 
former masters on terms of equality. In 1784 in his " Notes on Vir- 

3 



4 STUDIES IN SOUTHERN HISTORY AND POLITICS 

ginia" he suggested foreign colonization as a possible solution of 
the problem. In 1801 the Virginia legislature requested Gover- 
nor Monroe to correspond with President Jefferson in regard 
to the purchase of lands abroad "whither persons obnoxious to 
the laws and dangerous to the peace of society may be removed." 
In reply Jefferson indorsed the plan of colonization and suggested 
as possible colonies the West Indies, especially San Domingo. A 
year later he endeavored to obtain the consent of the English 
authorities to receive American free negroes into the colony of 
Sierra Leone, and, failing in this, he tried, again also without suc- 
cess, to obtain from Portugal lands in Brazil. In his correspon- 
dence Jefferson took the view that the blacks must be drawn off 
gradually to some foreign land and there protected for a time. In 
1804 the Virginia legislature suggested that he set apart a portion 
of Louisiana as a territory for negroes, but with this plan he was 
not impressed. 1 

Out of this feeling on the part of thoughtful men grew the Ameri- 
can Colonization Society which was developed between 1803 
and 1817. The actual organization of the Society was probably 
hastened by the renewed demand of the Virginia legislature in 
181G that the United States should acquire land outside the 
United States to which free negroes could be transported. Several 
Southern states indorsed the objects of the Society, 2 the prin- 
cipal one of which was to encourage emancipation by providing 
a way for the removal of the freed negroes from the country. 
Prominent men, among whom were Jefferson, Adams, Madison, 
Marshall, and Clay, supported the work of the society. Most 
of the members, however, were from the North and from the bor- 
der slave states, few residing in the plantation states ; and branches 
of the organization were established in all the states that had 
large numbers of free negroes. The sentiment that resulted in 
the formation of the Colonization Society also caused Congress 
to provide for the return to Africa of certain classes of free negroes 

' Wriiinus ,,f Thomas Jefferson (ed. L907), Vol. X. pp. 294, 326; Vol. XIII, 
p. l(); Vol. w. pp. L02, 249; Vol. XVI, p. 8. Ames, "State Documents on Federal 
Relations," p. 195 

'- Ami . ' State I >oouments," p. 195. 



DEPORTATION AND COLONIZATION 5 

and slaves captured from slave traders. The Society was used 
by Congress as its agent, $50 being appropriated to it for each 
negro carried back to Africa and maintained there for one year. 
Under this arrangement Liberia was organized as a colony for 
blacks, and by 1860 about 18,000 negroes had been transported 
thereto. During and after the Civil War about 2000 more were 
carried over. 1 

Some opposition to the Society arose in the lower South when 
the Northern opponents of slavery demanded that the United 
States government accept emancipation and deportation as a 
principle to be worked out as soon as possible. In 1824 the Ohio 
legislature suggested to the other states that the national govern- 
ment develop a plan of foreign colonization with a view to the 
emancipation and removal of all negroes, and that freedom should 
be given to all who at the age of twenty-one would consent to go 
to Liberia. This plan was indorsed by one slave state, Delaware, 
and six free states, Pennsylvania, Vermont, New Jersey, Indiana, 
Connecticut, and Massachusetts, but was disapproved by Georgia, 
South Carolina, Alabama, Missouri, Mississippi, and Louisiana. 
A few years later (1827) when the Colonization Society was ask- 
ing for national aid on a large scale, the house of representatives 
seemed favorably inclined, and the legislature of ten states, in- 
cluding Missouri, Kentucky, Delaware, and Tennessee, indorsed 
the request of the Society, but the states of the lower South strongly 
objected. In general the South was quite willing for the free 
negroes to be removed from the country, but objected to the use 
of the Society as an active anti-slavery agency. 2 

The small numbers transported to Africa show that the Society 
did not and could not solve the free negro problem. For this 
failure there were several reasons : first, free negroes, hard as was 
their condition in America, seldom desired to go to Africa, and 
none except negroes captured from slavers could legally be forced 
to go ; second, the work of the Society was hindered by the growth 
of radical abolition sentiment in the North during the second 

1 McPherson, " Liberia." 

* Ames, "State Documents," p. 203. Herbert, "Abolition Crusade," pp. 41, 45. 



6 STUDIES IN SOUTHERN HISTORY AND POLITICS 

quarter of the nineteenth century. The abolitionists, to a cer- 
tain extent, denied the principle upon which the Colonization 
Society was founded, namely, that the black race was inferior to 
the white and that in American society there was no place for 
the free blacks. Those who advocated deportation were accused 
of encouraging race prejudice and thus strengthening the bonds 
of slavery. In the lower South, on the other hand, the Society 
was regarded as an abolition agency. The active efforts of the 
abolitionists, and the introduction of the slavery question into 
partisan politics, weakened the Society and caused greater regard 
for the rights of the blacks. However, until the Civil War con- 
tracts were regularly made between the Colonization Society 
and the Department of the Interior for the return to Africa of 
negroes captured from slavers. 1 

Few other efforts were made to colonize free negroes. Small 
numbers of them were sent to the Island of Trinidad, where the 
English employers were extremely anxious to get better trained 
labor than could be obtained from the natives, 2 and a colony was 
also located in Hayti. In 1862, when the question of acquiring 
territory for negro colonies came up, Senator Doolittle asserted 
that President Jackson had once proposed in a cabinet meeting 
to purchase land in Mexico for colonizing free negroes. 3 

The free negroes were not content with the position offered 
them in the Northern states before the Civil War. A national 
emigration convention of colored people held in Cleveland, Ohio, 
in 1854 issued an address giving the views of the blacks in regard 
to the situation in America and stating that there was hope for 
the race only in a new country. "No people can be free," they 
said, "who themselves do not constitute an essential part of the 
ruling element of the country in which they live. ... A people 
to be free must be their own rulers"; in America the blacks, 
slave and free alike, would always be subject to the white man, and 
"the white race will only respect those who oppose their usur- 

1 Ho. Ex. Doc, 37th Cong., 2d Ses. 

2 Ho. Rept. No. 148, 37th Cong., 2d Ses., p. 24. 

3 Cong. Globe, 37th Cong., 2d Ses., pt. 4, App., p. 85. 



DEPORTATION AND COLONIZATION 7 

pation and acknowledge as equals those who will not submit to 
their rule." The position of the free negro in the North, the 
address stated, was precarious ; often they were kidnapped and 
sold as slaves to the South. Some friends of the blacks wanted 
to see them absorbed into the white race, on terms of equality, 
but this was impossible. Were master and slave of the same 
race, laws might easily destroy class differences, but such was 
not the case ; the negro was set apart by his color, which the law 
could not change, and this marked him for the prejudice of the 
whites. Besides, the race should not be destroyed ; it had a mis- 
sion, for "in the true principles of morals, correctness of thought, 
religion, and law or civil government, there is no doubt but that 
the black race will yet instruct the world." 

The Cleveland convention declared that sooner or later a strug- 
gle would arise between the colored and white races for control 
of the world ; the colored races were twice as numerous as their 
overlording whites and would not much longer submit to the rule 
of the minority; there was no hope of justice from the white 
race, which for 2000 years had been encroaching upon the colored 
races. In order to attain national existence and to be ready for 
the great conflict, the convention declared that a proper home for 
the race must be found, a center for organization. And such a 
place could be found only where the black race was in the majority 
and constituted the ruling element. The part of the world best 
suited to this purpose was tropical America, — the West Indies, 
Central America, and part of South America, — where, it was 
said, the whites were weak and worthless, where a negro was 
regarded as their equal, and where as a citizen he was often pre- 
ferred by the authorities, owing to the jealousy of outside inter- 
ference in Latin-American affairs and the consequent desire of 
the natives "to put a check to European presumption and insuf- 
ferable Yankee intrusion and impudence." The members of 
the convention were certain that the blacks could organize and 
maintain a national existence in tropical America. They had 
their own racial merits and in addition much of the civilization 
of the whites ; and they had never failed to thrive whether in 



8 STUDIES IN SOUTHERN HISTORY AND POLITICS 

freedom or slavery. In conclusion the Address declared : "This 
is a fixed fact in the zodiac of the political heavens, that the black 
and colored people are the stars which must ever most conspic- 
uously twinkle in the firmament of this division of the western 
hemisphere." 1 

The Address is interesting as showing the opinions of many of 
the free negro leaders, and of the whites who advised them ; it 
also shows that, perhaps because of the notoriety caused by the 
filibustering attempts of the time, tropical America, rather than 
Liberia, was being considered as the future refuge of free blacks. 

Before the Civil War it is doubtful if any considerable number 
of Northern anti-slavery people, except the radical abolitionists, 
would have advocated emancipation without deportation. To 
\ 4^\tJ*Athe Southern non-slave holder, who had little sympathy with 
slavery, the free negro was nevertheless a bugbear, slavery only 
'WUA#* A * t if an attempted solution of the race problem, and if slavery were 
done away with, the negro must go.} As evidence of the non-slave 
holder's dislike of the negroes, Senator Doolittle, during the 
debates of 1862 on deportation, declared, apparently upon 
authority, that Andrew Johnson, when governor of Tennessee in 
1856, was called upon by the non-slaveholders in a certain dis- 
trict for arms with which to repress a threatened rising of the 
slaves. Investigation disclosed the fact that they really hoped 
to exterminate the slaves, and to protect the latter Johnson had 
to call out the militia. 2 

In his opinions Lincoln was representative of both Northern 
and Southern anti-slavery sentiment. Born in Kentucky and 
living in a border state of the North, he understood better than 
most Northerners the feelings of the non-slaveholders of the South. 
While opposing the extension of slavery to new territories, lie did 
not, until forced to it as a war measure, favor abolition in the 
slave states. It was tda opinion that the physical differences of 
black and white were so greal that the two races could never 

live together in harmony on terms of equality. During the debates 

1 The Address is printed in Bo. Rept. X". 1 I s . 37th I long., 2d Ses. 
■ ( '..ntr. ( ;i<. he, 37th < Jong., 2d Ses., pt, I. p. si. 



DEPORTATION AND COLONIZATION 9 

with Douglas he said that his first impulse, if the negro should 
be freed, would be to send them to Liberia. "Let us be brought 
to believe it is morally right and at the same time favorable to or 
at least not against our interest to transfer the African to his 
native clime, and we shall find a way to do it however great 
the task may be." l Lincoln never abandoned these views. 

The advocates of gradual emancipation realized that in order 
to meet the objection to free negroes, some practical plan of pro- 
cedure must be offered. Deportation and colonization outside 
of the United States was the usual plan suggested. During the 
'50's another argument was offered in support of this measure : 
it was that American free negro colonies in the tropics would 
serve to extend American civilization and American commerce. 
In 1857 Horace Greeley in the Tribune said: "It is obvious that 
in this great body of civilized negroes we have ... a most power- 
ful and essential instrument toward extending ourselves, our 
ideas, our civilization, our commerce, industry, and political 
institutions through all the torrid zone." A correspondent in 
the New York Courier and Inquirer, July 23, 1857, voiced a like 
sentiment when he wrote : 

"But the great consideration is that which men appear resolved to 
conceal from themselves. It shows us that this negro race must neces- 
sarily take possession of the tropical regions ... to which they may 
be transported. They will expel the whites by the same law of nature 
which has given the blacks exclusive possession of corresponding lati- 
tudes in Africa. [We may hope that the South will want to give up 
slavery. If so the West Indies and South America are the places for 
the negroes] ... It is therefore of the highest importance that those 
regions be kept open for that contingency." 2 

The Republicans of the border states and the West were, before 
1860, strongly in favor of deportation. The most prominent 
advocates of this plan were Montgomery Blair, F. P. Blair, and 
J. R. Doolittle. Their letters contain many references to the 
colonization scheme. For example, in 1859 F. P. Blair wrote to 
Doolittle : 

1 Springfield Speech, June 28, 1857. Nicolay and Hay, Vol. VI, p. 354. 

2 Quoted in Ho. Rept. No. 148, 37th Cong., 2d Ses. • 



10 STUDIES IN SOUTHERN HISTORY AND POLITICS 

"I am delighted that you are pressing the colonization scheme in your 
campaign speeches. I touched upon it three or four times in my ad- 
dresses in Minnesota and if I am any judge of effect it is the finest theme 
with which to get at the hearts of the people and [it] can be defended with 
success at all points. ... I made it the culminating point and inevitable 
result of Republican doctrine." 

Montgomery Blair wrote to Doolittle about the same date that 
the North should demand that the emancipated negroes who had 
been sent to the North by their former owners should be colonized 
by the general government 

•'Where they can have political rights and where their manhood would 
have the stimulant of high objects to develop it, . . . it would rally the 
North as one man to our ranks. It would do more than ten thousand 
speeches to define accurately our objects and disabuse the minds of the 
great body of the Southern people of the issue South that the Republicans 
wish to set negroes free among them to be their equals and consequently 
their rulers when they are numerous. This is the only point needing 
elucidation and comprehension by the Southern people to make us as 
strong at the South as at the North. If we can commit our party dis- 
tinctly to this I will undertake for Maryland in I860." 1 

But this phase of the anti-slavery attack had too short a time 
in which to develop. The Civil War began and the " contrabands " 
at once became a burden upon the government and a problem 
for the rulers. The deportation solution was again proposed by 
such men as President Lincoln and Senators Blair, Doolittle, and 
Pomeroy, by anti-slavery unionists of the border states, and 
numerous other individuals. In his first message, December 8, 
1861, Lincoln suggested that provision be made for the coloniza- 
tion of freed negroes in a congenial climate. In order to do this 
he stated thai territory would have to be acquired. And in re- 
gard to colonization and the purchase of territory lie asked ''does 
not the expediency amount to absolute aecessity ? " s A week 

later Senator Harlan of Iowa introduced a bill in the senate author- 
izing the President to acquire the necessary territory. It was 

1 " Publications Southern Historical Association," Sept.. L906, 
* Lincoln, "Complete Works," Vol. II, p. 93 (Nioolay and Hay Ed.). Sec also 
Welles, "Diary," Vol, I. p. 160. 



DEPORTATION AND COLONIZATION 11 

referred to the committee on territories, 1 but at the time nothing 
was done. 

Early in 1862 the matter of deportation was again brought up 
in connection with the abolition of slavery in the District of Colum- 
bia. By the act of April 16, 1861, which abolished slavery in the 
Federal District, an appropriation of $100,000 was made to be 
expended under President Lincoln's direction in colonizing such 
negroes of the District of Columbia as might wish to go to Li- 
beria, Hayti, and other black men's countries. The expense was 
not to exceed $100 each. 2 Lincoln did not think this a sufficient 
sum, and he had another bill introduced which became law on 
July 16, 1862. By this law $500,000 was appropriated for coloni- 
zation purposes in addition to the $100,000 previously voted. The 
next day, July 17, 1862, another act was approved which author- 
ized the President to colonize abroad the negroes made free by the 
confiscation acts. The proceeds from confiscated property were 
to be turned into the Treasury to replace the appropriations made 
for colonization. 3 

Lincoln and many of his advisers believed that the proposal 
to separate the races would make many who had been hesitating 
willing to accept an emancipation policy ; even the Confederate 
non-slave holders would be impressed by it, they thought. 4 This 
feeling is reflected in the law of June 7, 1862, providing for the 
sale of lands in the South by the direct tax commissioners and the 
setting aside of one-fourth of the proceeds raised in each state 
to be paid after the war to that state to aid in colonizing the 
blacks. 5 

Lincoln was not content with these slight inducements to 
emancipation, and he had another bill introduced by Representative 

1 Cong. Globe, Dec. 10, 1861, p. 36. 

2 Statutes at Large, 37th Cong., 2d Ses., p. 378; "Official Records of the Re- 
bellion," Ser. Ill, Vol. II, p. 276 ; Cong. Globe, 37th Cong., 2d Ses., pt. IV, App., 
p. 348. 

3 Cong. Globe, 37th Cong., 2d Ses., pt. IV, pp. 410, 413. Off. Recs., Ser. III., 
Vol. II, p. 885. Statutes at Large, 37th Cong., 2d Ses., p. 582. 

4 See Doolittle's speeches in Cong. Globe, 37th Cong., 2d Ses., pt. IV, App., pp. 
83, 94. 

6 Statutes at Large, 37th Cong., 2d Ses., p. 425. 



12 STUDIES IN SOUTHERN HISTORY AND POLITICS 

White of Indiana, who explained that the purpose was to assist 
emancipation of slaves and the colonization of the freedmen. 
By this measure it was proposed to appropriate $180,000,000 
to purchase the 600,000 slaves belonging to unionist owners in 
the border states and $20,000,000 to be used in colonizing the 
negroes thus made free, "beyond the limits of the United States." 
White declared that $20,000,000 thus expended would repay the 
nation "a hundred fold in commerce." Evidently he had in 
mind a negro colonial system in the American tropics. The bill 
was favorably reported from the committee, but did not become a 
law, probably because of other colonization measures enacted 
about the same time. 1 

White also made, on July 16, 1862, an elaborate report as chair- 
man of the committee on emancipation and colonization. This 
committee had been appointed pursuant to a resolution of the 
house, April 7, 1862, which is said to have been framed by Mr. 
Lincoln. The committee was directed to report upon three mat- 
ters : (1) emancipation in the border states and Tennessee, (2) 
the practicability of colonizing freed negroes, and (3) whether the 
United States should aid emancipation and colonization. The 
committee reported that of the 1,200,000 slaves in the border 
states about half had been confiscated, or removed to the South, 
or were in refugee camps, while the other half belonged to "loyal" 
owners and should be paid for by the government, emancipated 
and colonized. 

The committee explained at length the position of the border 
and Southern states in regard to emancipation; stated that 
much of the opposition to emancipation was clue to a fear of too 
close association of races and consequent possible intermixture 
and to the feeling of the whites, especially in the border ami free 
states, :iikI declared thai emancipation would resull in economic 
competition of the races. It was the committee's opinion that 

"Aparl from the antipathy which nature has ordained, the presence 
of a race among us who oannol and oughl no1 to be admitted to our social 

1 < ong. Globe, .July it'., 1882, pp. 3394, 3395. Ho. Rept., 37th Cong., 2d Ses., 
p. 32. 






DEPORTATION AND COLONIZATION 13 

and political privileges will be a perpetual source of injury and inquietude 
to both. This is a question of color and is unaffected by the relation of ^ 
master and slave. The introduction of the negro, whether bound or free, . 
into the same field of labor with the white man is the opprobrium of the 
latter ; and we cannot believe that thousands of non-slaveholding citizens 
in the rebellious states are fighting to continue the negro within our 
limits in a state of vassalage, but more probably from a vague appre- 
hension that he is to become their competitor in his own right. [We be- 
lieve that the white man can furnish all our labor and that] the highest 
interest of the white races . . . requires that the whole country be held 
and occupied by those races alone. . . . The most formidable difficulty 
which lies in the way of emancipation in most if not in all the slave states 
is the belief which obtains especially among those who own no slaves, 
that if the negroes shall become free they must still continue in our midst, 
and ... in some measure be made equal to the Anglo-Saxon race. . . . kJu^ W* ' 
The belief [in the inferiority of the negro race] ... is indelibly fixed upon 
the public mind. The differences of the races separate them as with a 
wall of fire ; there is no instance in history where liberated slaves have _ 
lived in harmony with their former masters when denied equal rights — •l Jt *«*^ 1M ^ 
but the Anglo-Saxon will never give his consent to negro equality, and vvt**^ 
the recollections of the former relation of master and slave will be per- 
petuated by the changeless color of the Ethiop's skin. [Emancipation 
therefore without colonization could offer little to the negro race. A 
revolution of the blacks might result, but only to their undoing.] To 
appreciate and understand this difficulty it is only necessary for one to 
observe that in proportion as the legal barriers established by slavery 
have been removed by emancipation the prejudice of caste becomes 
stronger and public opinion more intolerant to the negro race." l 

To avoid these difficulties, to convince the poor whites that 
emancipation would not harm them and to give the negro an 
opportunity, the committee recommended colonization of freed- 
men in Central and South America and on the Islands of the Gulf 
of Mexico — a policy which would "restore to the tropics its 
own children." In those lands, it was declared, the whites had 

1 Ho. Rept. No. 148, 37th Cong., 2d Ses., Lincoln in December, 1862, in proposing 
compensated emancipation, stated, first, that he strongly favored colonization and, 
second, that free negro labor would not displace white labor or lower wages. See 
"Complete Works," Vol. II, p. 274. The American Freedmen's Inquiry Com- 
mission felt it necessary in 1863-1864 to declare that emancipation would not flood 
the North with negroes, but that those already in the North would go South. See 
"Preliminary and Final Reports," p. 102. This is the tone of much of the emanci- 
pation literature in 1862-1865. 



14 STUDIES IN SOUTHERN HISTORY AND POLITICS 

degenerated but the negroes had thriven. Moreover, the North 
American negroes had become civilized ; they had learned to 
work ; they had our language, our religion, and many of our habits 
and customs, so that "no one should doubt their capacity to main- 
tain a free and independent government under the guidance and 
patronage of our Republic." The sections of Central and South 
America considered by the committee were Yucatan, Cozumel, 
Venezuela, and Chiriqui (now Panama), a province in New Gra- 
nada (Colombia) near Costa Rica. In New Granada large tracts 
of land had been granted to the Chiriqui Improvement Company, 
an American corporation, for colonization purposes. 

Besides solving the problem of emancipation and establishing 
the future of the negro race, the committee believed that other 
benefits would result from tropical colonization. First, the gov- 
ernments of the Latin-American states would be more stable if 
under the supervision of the United States. Second, into the 
former slave states white immigrants would come, and free labor 
would thus be substituted for slave-labor, the evil economic effects 
of which might be observed by comparing Kentucky and Ohio, 
Massachusetts and South Carolina. Third, a considerable com- 
merce would be carried on with these black colonies, populated 
by 4,000,000 negroes desirous of obtaining the manufactured 
goods of the United States, thus giving an advantage to American 
trade similar to that given to England by her colonics. And this 
commerce would be needed after the war, for many military in- 
dustries would then cease and for years the trade with the ruined 
Southern states would be worth but little. 

The views as to race relations exhibited in the above report 
were, and still are to a certain extent, the views of the average 
white man living in contact with Degroes ; they were not the views 
of the radical abolitionists nor of the great slaveholders. Had 
the Republican party openly advocated such a policy from 185G 
to I860, the non-slaveholding whites of the South would never 
have supported and forced the secession movement. The com- 
mittee was composed of men from the border states. Besides 
Wnite of Indiana, the chairman, Blair of Missouri, Lehman of 



DEPORTATION AND COLONIZATION 15 

Pennsylvania, Fisher of Delaware, Whaley of West Virginia, Casey 
of Kentucky, Clemens of Tennessee, and Leary of Maryland were 
members. These were types of the border state men who sup- 
ported the war, disliked the radical abolitionists, and who during 
tne Reconstruction controversy sometimes became radical Demo- 
crats. 1 

To the Interior Department was intrusted the execution of the ^^ 
colonization laws referred to above. Secretary Smith employed • 3 
a Rev James Mitchell, who later proved to be very troublesome * 
as an agent of emigration," and he set up an "emigration office."' <9 ^ 
ihe public printer prepared for the use of the department 5000 * $ 
copies of a publication called "J^eJSOuls^ndLAfrican Races » % ? 
no copy of which can now be foundTATlo^n^slnT^r^pTia- < J* 
toons for colomzation were passed, numerous offers were made to 3 3 
the government by individuals and companies desirous of obtain- J V 
ing grants of money for transporting negroes, or by those who ^ W 
wanted to obtain laborers. The President of Guatemala offered 
several thousand acres of his own land for an experiment in coloni- 
zation. To F. P. Blair, Jr., he sent the following proposition ■ 
each negro family should have free of -rent a town lot of two to 
six acres and timber for fences and houses; farm lands would be 
rented to the negroes at reasonable rates or they would be hired 
for $12 to $14 a month ; supplies would be furnished until they 
could produce their own. 2 

The American Colonization Society offered to transport the 
freedmen to Liberia and support them for six months for $100 
each. Lincoln asked the authorities of this Society to submit a 
plan for carrying the blacks to Africa, and through them agents 
were sent to Liberia to investigate conditions with a view to set- 
tling a large colony on the St. John River. Lincoln and Secretary 
Smith finally accepted the proposition of the Society to transport 
negroes at $100 per head, but only a few hundred could be persuaded 
to go. Officers of the Society were authorized by the Secretary of 

w n F ° r .^ e reP ° rt iQ ful1 ' See Ho - Rept No " 148 - 37th C ong- 2d Ses. See also 
Welles, Diary," Vol. I, pp. 123, 150. 

2 "Pubs. So. Hist. Assn.," Nov., 1905. 



16 STUDIES IN SOUTHERN HISTORY AND POLITICS 

the Interior to go to Fortress Monroe to procure negroes, but 
Secretary Stanton, who did not approve the deportation plan, 
refused to allow the officers to go within the military lines, so that 
their operations were confined to the District of Columbia. 1 

Numerous other propositions were made to the Interior Depart- 
ment. A New York association offered to transport negroes to 
San Domingo for $20 apiece, give to each fifty acres of land, and 
guarantee regular employment. Another New York company 
desired to sell its land in Costa Rica to the United States govern- 
ment. A Mr. Burr offered fifteen square miles in British Honduras 
for $75,000. Several offers also came from South America. The 
President of Hayti, thinking that some money could be made out 
of the business, sent an agent to the District of Columbia, who 
found sixty negroes willing to go. The Haytian government 
promised fifteen acres of land to each head of a family and six 
acres to each unmarried man, with guarantee of political rights. 
From 1861 to 1864 several independent colonies went to Hayti, 
but they were not assisted by the United States government. 2 

The Dutch minister offered to make a contract with the United 
States government to carry laborers to Surinam, but his proposi- 
tion was refused. The officers of tramp steamers going to Aus- 
tralia wanted to take negroes from Hilton Head in South Carolina 
and Fernandina in Florida, but they were not allowed to do so. 
Both the Maryland and the Pennsylvania Colonization Societies 
applied for assistance, which was refused on the ground that only 
District of Columbia negroes and those freed by the confiscation 
acts could be transported at public expense. Eli Thayer, of 
Kansas emigration fame, planned to settle a negro colony in 
Florida, but it did not materialize. Hiram Ketchum, of the Ameri- 
can West India Company of New York, was permitted to take 
negroes to San Domingo to raise cotton, and a like privilege was 
granted to the British Honduras Company. 

To the Danish government permission seems to have l»ni 

1 Sen. Kx. Doc. No. 55, 39th <'<>"«■. 1st Sea. A. Hansen, Consul t" Liberia, to 
Doolittle, April 30, 1st,:;, in " Pubs. So. Hist. Assn.," Nov.. L905. 

*New York Tribune, Feb. 28, L863. Welles, "Diary," Vol. I, pp. 150, 152. 



DEPORTATION AND COLONIZATION 17 

granted to take volunteer laborers to the sugar plantations of 
St. Croix on the following terms : contracts to be made for one 
year, at the end of which time the laborers might change employers ; 
nine hours of work a day was to be given ; laborers were to have 
garden "patches"; and no whipping was to be allowed except 
upon sentence of an officer. Charles W. Kimbell, formerly United 
States consul to Guadaloupe, desired similar privileges and asked 
to be sent to Martinique and Guadaloupe to "make the necessary 
arrangements for the reception of sixty or eighty thousand emi- 
grants free of all charges of transportation." In commenting 
upon these propositions, Secretary Smith said : "The act of April 
16 [1862] may be regarded but as the commencement of a great 
national scheme which may ultimately relieve the United States 
of the surplus colored population." * None of the parties above 
mentioned except the American Colonization Society had the 
direct financial support of the United States government. They 
carried out some negroes — how many it is impossible to say, for 
no records were kept, but certainly not many hundred. 

The United States government, on its own account, made two 
distinct efforts to settle negroes outside of the United States — ■ 
one colony was to be planted in Central America and another on 
Isle a, Vache, or Cow Island, near the southwest coast of Hayti. 
President Lincoln was most interested in the proposed Central 
American settlement and used his influence with Congress and with 
the leading free negroes to secure a colony there. He brought the 
matter up frequently in cabinet meetings, but most of the mem- 
bers were opposed. 2 On August 14, 1862, a delegation of negroes 
was invited to see Lincoln in regard to the proposed Central 
American settlement. Colonization was necessary, he told them 
plainly, because the blacks and whites were so different that each 
suffered from contact with the other ; in this country the negroes 
were nowhere given equal rights, so let them go where they would 

1 Report from Interior Department on Colonization, in Sen. Ex. Doc. No. 55, 
39th Cong., 1st Ses. Welles, "Diary," Vol. I, p. 152. 

2 See Nicolay and Hay, Vol. VI, p. 125 ; Chase's " Diary," July 21, 1862 ; Welles, 
"Diary," Vol. Ill, p. 438. 



18 STUDIES IN SOUTHERN HISTORY AND POLITICS 

have equality ; except for slavery there would have been no war, 
and further trouble might be expected if the races remained to- 
gether ; for a few leading negroes, living in comfort, to oppose 
colonization was selfish ; they ought to sacrifice their own com- 
fort for the good of the race ; if the free negroes would go away, 
the whites would be willing to emancipate all ; the more capable 
negroes ought to go first, not the newly freed ; and Liberia was 
a good place, though at present he (Lincoln) was thinking of 
Central America, where the white people had no objection to the 
blacks and where the blacks could hope for equality. 1 

The border state Congressmen were assured by the President 
that if their states would emancipate the negroes, plenty of room 
could be found for them in Central America. 2 Doolittle and 
Pomeroy began active efforts to find negroes for a colony, and 
Pomeroy issued an address to the negroes of the United States 
advising them to accept the President's suggestions. 3 In a letter 
to Doolittle, to whom he gave credit for the passage of the coloni- 
zation laws, Pomeroy gave his views on the matter. Others, he 
said, wanted only freedom for the blacks ; he himself wanted 
"rights and enjoyments for them." "Can he secure them with 
the white man ? — what are the teachings of two hundred and 
fifty years of history ! Only this, that the free colored men of 
the free states are doomed to a life of servile labor ... no hope 
of elevation. ... I am for the negro's securing his rights and his 
nationality in the clime of his nativity on the soil of the tropics. 
. . . Nothing will restore this Union but a probable solution of 
the problem — what shall be the destiny of the colored race on 
this continent?" 4 

At first Lincoln was anxious to purchase territory for settle- 
ment in order that the United States government might exercise 
control over the negro colonies. But he was prevented from doing 
this in Central America by the Clayton-Bulwer treaty, which pro- 

1 Lincoln, Complete Works, Vol. II, p. 222. 
- I hid., Vol. II, p. 205. 
Mm,, re, "Rebellion Record," 1862, Vol. V, p. G5. Welles, "Diary," Vol. I, 
p. 123. 

* " Pubs. So. Hist. Assn.," Nov., 1905. 



DEPORTATION AND COLONIZATION 19 

hibited the United States from exercising control over any part 
of Central America. When A. W. Thompson of the Chiriqui 
Improvement Company, indorsed by Pomeroy, offered to colonize 
negroes in Chiriqui province, New Granada, Lincoln wished to 
accept the offer. Thompson claimed to have control of 2,000,000 
acres on the Isthmus beyond the boundary of Central America, 
i.e. below Costa Rica, and thus not subject to the terms of the 
Clayton-Bulwer treaty. The land contained some coal deposits, 
and Thompson was anxious to secure a contract to supply the 
navy with coal. 

Gideon Welles, Secretary of the Navy, wrote in his diary that 
on September 11, 1862, Senator Pomeroy's scheme for deporting 
negroes to Chiriqui came up for discussion in the President's 
cabinet. Welles was opposed to Thompson's project and he 
believed that Pomeroy had a financial interest in it. Under date 
of September 26, 1862, Welles recorded that at several recent 
cabinet meetings the subject of deportation had been discussed. 
In fact, he stated that it had been under discussion almost from 
the beginning of the administration. "The President was in 
earnest about the matter, wished to send the negroes out of the 
country. Smith, with the Thompsons, urged and stimulated 
him and they were as importunate with me as the President." 
Lincoln, Blair, and Smith favored the Chiriqui scheme, while 
Welles, who pronounced it "a fraud and a cheat," with Chase, 
Stanton, and Bates, opposed it, the latter only because Thompson's 
title to the land was disputed. On September 23, Lincoln asked 
each member of his cabinet to consider seriously the subject of 
acquiring territory to which the negroes might be deported. 
He " thought it essential to provide an asylum for a race which 
we had emancipated, but which could never be recognized or 
admitted to be our equals." Blair and Bates were in favor of 
compulsory deportation, while the other members of the cabinet 
believed that voluntary emigration would solve the problem. 1 

1 After 1862 Welles makes no further mention of the subject of deportation and 
seems not to have known that Lincoln had already made a contract with Thompson. 
Welles, "Diary," Vol. I, pp. 123, 150, 162; Vol. Ill, p. 428. 



20 STUDIES IN SOUTHERN HISTORY AND POLITICS 

Lincoln, however, had accepted the offer of Senator Pomeroy 
to supervise the work of colonization without charge, and a con- 
tract was made with Thompson on September 12, 1862, so framed 
as to safeguard the rights of the negroes. It contained the fol- 
lowing provisions : Pomeroy or some other agent of the President 
was to investigate conditions and supervise the settlement ; 
Thompson was to be responsible for the conduct of the colonists, 
and the United States was not to be compromised with New 
Granada ; equality of citizenship was to be secured for the blacks ; 
Thompson was to give land with good titles to the negroes — 
twenty acres to each adult male, forty acres to the head of a family 
with five children, and eighty acres to each head of family with 
more than five children ; the United States would pay the costs 
of surveying the lands, and as fast as the land should be settled 
the government would pay $1 per acre for not more than 100,000 
acres, thirty per cent of the payments to go to Thompson and 
seventy per cent to be used in making roads and wharves ; further- 
more, when Pomeroy should report that one settlement had been 
made, then the United States would advance Thompson $50,000 
to aid in the development of coal mines, this sum to be repaid in 
coal for the use of the United States navy. 

To Pomeroy was given control of the expedition and its finances. 
Secretary Smith instructed him that his expenses, but no salary, 
would be paid, that he was authorized to organize the colony and 
supervise it, and that if he found Chiriqui unsuited, he might take 
the negroes elsewhere, though not to Guatemala or Salvador, 
which had raised vigorous objections to negro colonization. The 
Treasury Department immediately placed $25,000 at the disposal 
of Pomeroy. During the month of September, 1862, he paid 
$14,000 of this amount to Thompson, and on April 4, 1864, he paid 
Thompson and W. E. Gaylord $8732.37, this being the remainder 
of the $25,000. He himself had expended about $2300. Secre- 
tary Seward sent circulars to the Central American states and to 
England, France, Denmark, and the Netherlands, — countries 
which had tropical colonies, - inviting negotiations and sugges- 
tions with respect to colonization. From the Central American 



DEPORTATION AND COLONIZATION 21 

governments came prompt responses: they wanted no negro 
colonies which would be under any sort of control by the United 
States, and most of them objected to any kind of negro coloniza- 
tion. In October Pomeroy wrote to Doolittle : "I have 13,700 
applicants. I have selected of them 500 for a pioneer party," 
but Seward, he said, had stopped the colonization on account of 
the attitude of the governments in Central America. 1 

Professor Joseph Henry of the Smithsonian Institution helped 
to put an end to the Chiriqui scheme by declaring that the coal 
on Thompson's property was worthless, and the Central American 
states not only protested against colonization, but denied the le- 
gality of Thompson's title to the land. So ended the attempt to 
settle negroes in Central America. What became of the $25,000 
is not known. Pomeroy 's accounts had not been settled in 1870. 
He seems to have lost Lincoln's confidence, and there is no evidence 
that many negroes were sent to Chiriqui. 2 

The colonization on Isle a Vache promised to be more success- 
ful than the Central American attempt. Of several propositions 
to carry negroes to Hayti, Lincoln preferred that of Bernard Kock 
(or Koch), who had leased Isle a Vache from the Haytian govern- 
ment for twenty years. The island was about twelve miles from 
Aux Cayes on the mainland, contained about one hundred square 
miles, had good soil for cotton culture, and was not subject to 
epidemics. On December 31, 1862, Lincoln, anxious to get the 
colonization experiment started, made a contract with Kock to 
carry 5000 negroes to his island for $50 per head. Kock was to 
secure from the Haytian government a guarantee of equal rights 
for the blacks, furnish them houses, gardens, and food, build 
churches and schools, and give them employment under white 
superintendents at wages ranging from $4 to $10 a month. Kock 
took this contract to New York and Boston capitalists and asked 

1 "Pubs. So. Hist. Assn.," Nov., 1905. Welles, "Diary," Vol. I, p. 162. 

2 On the Chiriqui enterprise see Nicolay and Hay, Lincoln, Vol. VI, pp. 356-359. 
Sen. Ex. Doc. No. 55, 39th Cong., 1st Ses. " Pubs. So. Hist. Assn.," Nov., 1905. 
Lincoln's Complete Works, Vol. II, p. 490. Ho. Ex. Doc. Nos. 222, 227, 41st 
Cong., 2d Ses. Welles, "Diary," Vol. I, pp. 123, 150, 162 ; Vol. Ill, p. 428. Dip- 
lomatic Correspondence, 1862-1864. 



22 STUDIES IN SOUTHERN HISTORY AND POLITICS 

for financial support. He proposed to carry 500 negroes out at 
once, and to raise in 1863 a thousand bales of sea island cotton 
which would be worth at the prices then prevailing nearly a mil- 
lion dollars. The outlay, he thought, need not be more than 
$70,000. The capital was promised, several hundred negroes were 
ready to go, a ship was chartered, and supplies collected at Fortress 
Monroe. But the opponents of negro colonization now asserted 
that Kock was in league with Admiral Semmes to abduct and reen- 
slave the negroes and that he was of doubtful character, conse- 
quently Lincoln canceled the contract. 1 

Certain New York capitalists, Jerome, Forbes, and Tuckerman, 
who had subscribed to the Kock company, were so impressed with 
the scheme that they purchased the Haytian lease and then sought 
to obtain a contract from the government similar to that made 
with Kock. Usher, who had succeeded Smith as Secretary of the 
Interior, was assured that the contractors were reliable men, and 
the contract was made by him with Forbes and Tuckerman on 
April 6, 1863. By this agreement the negroes were to be looked 
after for five years by the contractors, and upon proof of success- 
ful settlement the United States was to pay $50 per head for each 
negro colonist. The contractors intended to send Kock out as 
governor, and the money was furnished by Jerome, who, for some 
reason, was in bad repute with the government. But of the 
connection between the two men and the contractors the govern- 
ment authorities knew nothing at the time. Tuckerman, in 1886, 
asserted that Lincoln pressed the contract upon Forbes and him- 
self, urged that they "as a personal favor" accept it and help him 
carry out the plan which he had so much at heart. Unwillingly, 
he says, they agreed to ship the first 500 negroes, for whom pro- 
vision had already been made. 2 

An expedition was started at once for Isle a Vache. The 
Ocean Ranger left Fortress Monroe with about 500 negroes, "the 
poor refugees," according to Tuckerman, "flocking on board, 

1 Nicolay and Hay, Lincoln, Vol. VI, p. 359. Magazine of American History, 
Vol. XVI, p. 329. 

* Magazine of American History, Vol. XVI, p. 330. 



DEPORTATION AND COLONIZATION 23 

shouting hallelujahs and in some instances falling on their knees 
in thanksgiving for the promised blessings in store for them." 
Kock, the governor or manager, with several white superintendents, 
accompanied the negroes to the island. On the voyage the negroes 
were not well cared for, smallpox broke out, and twenty or thirty 
persons died, among them several of the whites ; the blacks had to 
purchase drinking water from the ship's steward, and the food 
was bad. They were landed during the rainy season, but found 
no houses and but little lumber out of which to construct them, 
and were forced to build rude huts for shelter. Kock brought 
no supplies, no seeds, and no implements, but, being charged with 
the discipline of the colony, he brought handcuffs, leg chains, and 
stocks. He proved to be despotic and incompetent, and some of 
the negroes were maimed for life by his harsh discipline. He 
managed to get all the coin money that the negroes had, and paid 
them for their work only in paper money which he had printed. 
The exasperated blacks finally drove him off. When his em- 
ployers, who cared only for the promised one thousand bales of 
cotton, heard of this, they stopped the meager supplies which they 
had been sending, and left the negroes to shift for themselves. 
Tuckerman's account (1886) does not agree with the above, which 
is based on the records of the Interior Department. He says that 
"no sooner were the survivors landed and the necessity for manual 
labor on their part apparent than the lowest characteristics of 
the negro — indolence, discontent, insubordination, and finally 
revolt — prevailed. Mistaking liberty for license, they refused 
to work and raised preposterous demands for luxuries to which they 
were wholly unaccustomed during servitude." He further states 
that discontent was fostered by the natives, who wished the colo- 
nists to desert and become Haytian subjects. This" we refused 
to allow the freedmen to do." l 

To Lincoln the failure of this enterprise was a bitter disap- 
pointment. Soon after the Ocean Ranger had sailed for Hayti 
the State Department learned that Bernard Kock was the prime 
mover in the expedition ; and that Leonard Jerome had furnished 

1 Magazine of American History, Vol. XVI, p. 329. 



24 STUDIES IN SOUTHERN HISTORY AND POLITICS 

the capital. Secretary Usher at once informed Tuckerman and 
Forbes that they might count upon no more contracts, for the 
connection of Kock and Jerome with the undertaking was regarded 
as an act of bad faith to the United States. From Confederate 
newspapers Lincoln learned that the negroes had been neglected, 
and he caused remonstrances to be made to the contractors. 
Jerome now came forward and avowed his intention to expend no 
more money for the negroes. Usher tried to hold Tuckerman and 
Forbes to their contract, but soon found that they were acting only 
for Jerome. He charged Tuckerman and Forbes with acting in 
bad faith throughout the transaction and informed them that no 
money would be paid until the contract was carried out. To 
Jerome he wrote : "Candor induces me to inform you that when 
your name was proposed as one of the contracting parties by Mr. 
Tuckerman I declined to have it inserted [in the contract] because 
I did not think that your avocation and habits of life would induce 
you to persevere in the enterprise if it should prove disastrous and 
unprofitable." 

Reports of bad conditions in the colony continued to come in, 
and Lincoln was troubled by the accounts of the sufferings of the 
negroes. 1 Finally D. C. Donahue of Greencastle, Indiana, was 
sent in October, 1863, to investigate conditions on the island. In 
his report to the Secretary of the Interior, he described the situa- 
tion of the blacks as deplorable and their treatment by Kock and 
his men as inhuman. Instead of preparing to care for the negroes 
for five years, as they had agreed, the contractors had already 
ceased to furnish supplies. 2 Donahue found 378 negroes out of 
about 500 who had been carried from Fortress Monroe, and for 
several months supplied them at the expense of the United States 
government. He thought that the principal cause of the failure 

1 See Eaton's "Grant, Lincoln and the Freedmen," p. 91. 

2 On the other hand, Tuckerman stated in 1886: "Shiploads of provisions and 
other necessities were forwarded and instructions of the most concise and liberal 
nature were given for the maintenance and support of the families until they could 
be returned to the United States under proper protection. All this involved great 
delay and . . . eight months of anxiety and expense on our part." The loss, he 
said, was about $90,000, which Congress refused to pay. See Magazine of American 
History, Vol. XVI, pp. 329-332. 



DEPORTATION AND COLONIZATION 25 

was mismanagement, for the soil was good and cotton could be 
profitably raised. Then, too, the Haytians were opposed to the 
colony. Kock had not received permission to colonize the island, 
nor had anything been done to secure citizenship for the colonists. 
Another difficulty in the way of successful colonization lay in 
the fact that the American blacks were quite different from the 
Haytians in language, customs, religion, and ideas of government. 
The negroes wanted to return to the United States, and the Hay- 
tians were anxious for them to go. It was Donahue's opinion 
that a successful colony could not then be developed in Hayti. 1 

Reluctantly Lincoln abandoned his second serious attempt at 
colonizing the blacks, and on February 8, 1864, he requested Stan- 
ton to send a ship to bring the Cow Island colonists back to the 
refugee camps in the District of Columbia. 2 For some reason 
practically all of the colonization work had been done more or less 
in secrecy. When the Ocean Ranger took the five hundred negroes 
from Fortress Monroe to Hayti there were few who knew what 
was being done, and hence there arose the widespread rumor that 
the negroes were simply kidnapped and turned over to the Con- 
federates. Even more secret was the bringing back of the colo- 
nists. The ship Maria L. Day was chartered at New York and 
provisioned as for a voyage to Aspinwall to take on five hundred 
United States troops returning from California. Captain Edward 
L. Hartz was placed in charge, with directions to proceed toward 
Aspinwall and with sealed orders which he was to open when he 
reached 20 ° north latitude. 3 He found 293 negroes on the island 
under Donahue's care ; the others had died or wandered away. 
Clothes were distributed to the destitute, and on March 4, 1864, 
the return trip was begun. On March 20 the colonists were 
landed at Alexandria, Virginia, and the venture was at an end. 4 
For several years the contractors made efforts to collect their 

» Sen. Ex. Doc. No. 55, 39th Cong., 1st Ses. Nicolay and Hay, Vol. VI, p. 359. 

2 Off. Recs., Ser. Ill, Vol. IV, p. 75. Lincoln's Complete Works, Vol. II, p. 
477. 

3 Off. Recs., Ser. Ill, Vol. IV, p. 76. 

* Nicolay and Hay, Vol. VI, p. 359. Welles, "Diary," Vol. Ill, p. 428. Maga- 
zine of American History, Oct., 1886. 



26 STUDIES IN SOUTHERN HISTORY AND POLITICS 

expenses from the United States government but did not suc- 
ceed. 1 

Though Lincoln still believed in the necessity for colonization, 
the failure of the Cow Island colony prejudiced the blacks against 
such attempts and strengthened the efforts of those whites who 
now opposed colonization and favored the incorporation of the 
negroes into the American population. In December, 1862, 
Lincoln had stated in his message that the failure of the Central 
American scheme had disappointed many negroes who wanted to 
leave the United States, and that only two places were left to which 
they might go — Liberia and Hayti — but that they were un- 
willing to go to these places. 2 Now, after the failure of the Kock 
expedition, Hayti was out of the question. 

The Secretary of the Interior, in December, 1863, reported that 
the negroes were no longer willing to leave the United States, and 
that they were needed in the army. For these reasons he thought 
that they should not be forcibly deported. Referring to some 
attempts to settle negroes in the North, he declared that "much 
prejudice has been manifested throughout most of the free states 
in regard to the introduction of colored persons," yet he thought 
it might be possible to use them in constructing the Pacific rail- 
ways, where labor was needed and where there would be no objec- 
tion to them. 3 

In Congress opinion was turning against colonization, and in 
March, 1864, Senator Wilkinson introduced a bill to repeal all 
measures making appropriations for deportation of negroes. 4 He 
declared that these attempts had been "extremest folly" and 
that the results had been "hazardous and disgraceful." 5 On 
July 2, 1864, Lincoln signed an act repealing all the laws relating 
to negro colonization. 6 

1 Son. Ex. Doc. No. 55, 39th Cong., 1st Ses. Magazine of American History, 
Vol. XVI, p. 332. 

2 Lincoln, " Complete Works," Vol. II, p. 262. 

3 J. P. Usher, Report of Sec. of Interior, Dec. 5, 1863. 

4 Cong. Globe, March 1">, 1864, p. 1108. 
8 Cong. Globe, May 11, 18G4, p. 2218. 

6 Cong. Globe, 38 Cong., 1st Ses., pt. 1, App., p. 249. 



DEPORTATION AND COLONIZATION 27 

The Interior Department gradually discontinued its "emi- 
gration office." In May, 1863, Usher attempted to get rid of 
Rev. James Mitchell, whom Lincoln had appointed as "agent of 
emigration," but Mitchell continued in office for a year longer. 
Usher complained that Mitchell, without permission, corresponded 
in the name of the department on emigration matters. He was 
forbidden to do this, and the records of his office were called for. 
These he refused to give up, and he was discharged at the end of 
June, 1864. For months he besieged the Secretary of the Interior 
for an extra year's salary, but finally dropped out of the records 
in 1865. 1 When, in 1870, the House called for the accounts of 
the emigration agents, it was found that $38,329.93 had been ex- 
pended by them. Of this $25,000 had been paid to Senator Pom- 
eroy, and the remainder had been expended by other agents. 
The American Colonization Society returned in 1864 the $25,000 
that it had received in 1863. 2 

After the failure of foreign colonization the advocates of separa- 
tion of the races suggested that sections of the South be set apart 
for the negroes. Some thought that South Carolina and Georgia 
should be given them ; 3 others that the lower Mississippi valley 
should be cleared of whites and divided among the ex-slaves ; a 
third proposition was that in each Southern state a section should 
be set apart for the blacks. Senator Lane of Kansas strongly 
advocated a bill to set apart for the blacks that part of Texas 
bounded by the Rio Grande, the Gulf, the Colorado River of 
Texas, and the Llano Estacado. Lane thought that the negroes 
should be forced to go to this region at their own expense. The 
United States might use, he said, the $600,000 already appro- 
priated to purchase titles, might carry colored troops out there 
and discharge them, and then send their families to them. Thus 
would be formed the nucleus of a negro state. He stated the 
following reasons for favoring colonization: the North was op- 
posed to the negro as a laborer and wanted no mixture of races ; 

i Sen. Ex. Doc. No. 55, 39th Cong., 1st Ses., pp. 45-47. 

2 Ho. Ex. Doc. No. 222, 41st Cong., 2d Ses. 

3 Governor Cox of Ohio supported this plan. See Welles. " Diary." Vol. II, p. 352. 



28 STUDIES IN SOUTHERN HISTORY AND POLITICS 

in the South the whites would hate the ex-slaves whom they had 
so mistreated ; the sentiment in favor of negro rights, now so 
strong, would in time die out and the negro would be left with 
no chance for social or political equality ; at the end of the war 
there would be a surplus of labor, due to the discontinuance of 
war industries and to the discharge of soldiers ; it would be im- 
possible to give to the negroes the lands of their masters and to 
secure quiet titles, for even if the Southern men were killed, the 
women and children would remain, and, after amnesty, would 
hold the lands. "I had hoped," he said, "the time should come 
when the foot prints of the white man should not be found on the 
soil of South Carolina," but in this matter the best interest of 
the blacks must be considered. Lane's bill was favorably re- 
ported but did not become a law. 1 

President Lincoln continued to believe that deportation was 
the only permanent solution of the problem. General B. F. 
Butler, who had had considerable experience in dealing with 
negroes in Virginia and Louisiana, was called into consultation 
by Lincoln soon after the Hampton Roads Conference. Butler 
says that Lincoln asked him to report upon the feasibility of 
using the United States navy, which would soon be free from 
war service, to deport the negroes. The President told Butler 
that he feared more trouble between the North and the South 
"unless we can get rid of the/fyegroes," especially the negro sol- 
diers, who, he thought, were certain to give trouble ; that the 
Southern whites would be disarmed at the end of the war while 
the negroes either had arms or could easily get them from the 
North ; and that a race war might result. The question of the 
colored troops, Lincoln said, troubled him exceedingly. He be- 
lieved that all of them should be deported to some fertile country 
of the tropics. Butler, a few days afterward, made an oral re- 
port in which he made the famous assertion which is still quoted : 
that all the vessels in America could not carry away the blacks 
as fast as Aegro babies were born. However, in order to dispose 

•Cong. Globe, Jan. 13. 1SC.1. pp. 145. 23S ; Feb. 4, p. 480; Feb. 11, p. 586; 
Feb. 17, p. 072. Welles, "Diary," Vol. II, p. 352. 



J»e: 



DEPORTATION AND COLONIZATION 29 



of the uegro troops, Butler proposed that he take them to Panama 
and use them in digging the canal. One-third of them could 
labor on the canal, one-third could raise food, and the other one- 
third could provide shelter, etc. The wives and children of the 
soldiers could be sent to them. Butler states that Lincoln was 
impressed by this proposition and asked him to confer with Seward 
to see if foreign complications were to be feared. Butler wrote 
out a report which he carried to Seward, who, knowing Lincoln's 
interest in the problem of the negro troops, promised to examine 
the matter carefully. But the murder of Lincoln and the wound- 
ing of Seward put an end to this plan. 1 

While few practical attempts were made to separate the races, 
yet much opinion in the North was in favor of it, until the end of 
the war. Especially was this true of the army, which to the last 
cared little for the negro per se. This feeling that the blacks 
should be set apart is shown in the regulations made from 1862 
to 1865 by officials controlling the blacks in the Mississippi valley 
and on the Atlantic coast, which almost invariably prohibited 
whites from entering the black communities. Sherman in his 
famous Field Order No. 15, setting aside the coasts of Georgia 
and South Carolina for the negroes, directed that no whites were 
to be allowed to live in the negro districts. 2 

Since the close of the war there has been much discussion of 
deportation and colonization, but very little effort has been made 
to colonize. The American Colonization Society kept up its work 
after the war, but could get only a few hundred negroes a year. 
Bishop Turner of the African Methodist Episcopal Church was 
for years the leading exponent of the colonization idea, and while 
his views have been indorsed in theory by many of his race, 
relatively few of them have gone back to Africa. After the fail- 
ure of the "Exodus" movement of 1879-1882 to Kansas there 
was strong sentiment among the negroes in favor of "separate 
national existence." The "United Transatlantic Society," or- 
ganized during the '80's by one of the "Exodus" leaders, reflected 

1 This is Butler's statement. See "Butler's Book," pp. 903-907. 
*See Fleming, "Doc. Hist. Recon.," Vol. I, p. 350. 




30 STUDIES IN SOUTHERN 

this feeling but had slight results. 1 One thing that has prejudiced 
the jhegroes against going to Liberia or to other proposed places 
of settlement is the fact that many swindlers have taken advantage 
of the various colonization schemes to defraud the negroes by 
collecting passage money from them and giving them fraudulent 
tickets. 2 Negroes who went to Liberia have come back with bad 
reports of the country. The jtyegro and the Southern white, each 
in a way, favor colonization. Somejj/egroes would be glad to go 
if they were sure of doing as well in Africa as in the United States, 
while every white man would be glad to have the entire black race 
deported — except hi s own laborers \ Any organized emigration 
scheme invariably meets more or less forcible resistance from the 
employers of black labor. 

1 See American Journal of Sociology, July 1909, p. 77. 

2 The latest of these schemes was reported in January and February, 1914. See 
Literary Digest, March 21, 1914. 



*^v 



u 



B B^ v0 .1 ii«\\\l\lli 






OOA' 



penmalife® 
pH8.5 



